


First Bloom

by Sekiei



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Developing Relationship, Healing, M/M, Post-Endgame
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-21 20:03:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11951613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sekiei/pseuds/Sekiei
Summary: In the aftermath of the war, surviving in devastated Eos is no easy task. But for Gladiolus and Ignis, living may prove a more arduous challenge still.





	First Bloom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tikali](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tikali/gifts).



> This story is a gift for [Asoeiki](https://asoeiki.tumblr.com/art) (Tikali on here) as a thank you for all the amazing fan art she has drawn for many of my stories. Thank you so much. <3 The inspiration for this comes from one of her drawings of Gladiolus that I'll add at the end for you all to enjoy. Go give her some love. 
> 
> As always, thank you to [1000Needles](http://archiveofourown.org/users/1000Needles/pseuds/1000Needles) for her constant support and her thorough work editing this story.
> 
> (Asoeiki is amazing and made more art for this story! I've added it after the actual scene it illustrates, the original drawing that inspired the story is at the end ^___^)

Dawn comes.

The warmth of sunlight blesses the husk of a moribund world, filled with ruins and the shadows of those that failed to survive. But mankind - resilient as always - rises to the task. There are talks. So many talks. About priorities, and infrastructure, and power, and clean running water. The scope of the what they must accomplish is staggering. Yet, for the first time in decades, people know hope again and they all come together with expressions of goodwill the perpetual darkness had long squandered.

All, but for the dead king’s retinue. The world bustles around them. The world they fought for, the world cruel gods asked the ultimate sacrifice to save. So much has to be done. They watch torn between grief and exhaustion. They’ve done enough. They have nothing left to give.

Prompto leaves first. Wiz has turned the Chocobo Post into a breeding facility, a desperate attempt to save the birds from extinction. There are so few left.

‘We were happy there, once, despite everything,’ Prompto says. ‘I think it’ll be a good place for now.’

They don’t try to stop him. It’s an inspired move; he will feel connected and useful there. They hug him, say goodbye and see you soon, even if there’s no guarantee it’ll ever happen. The world is an unpredictable place, now more than ever.

‘Where are you going to go?’ Ignis asks, one evening.

Gladiolus shakes his head, a reflex gesture he regrets as soon as he looks up and sees Ignis motionless, waiting on his answer.

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘But I don’t think I can stay here.’

Insomnia is a grave. They can’t forget.

‘What about you?’

Ignis’s fingers drum on the patched-up blanket he’s wrapped around his shoulders. The sheet-metal wall cries when he shrugs. His eyes flick from side to side, unseeing, as they sometimes do when he moves too fast. They are dull in the firelight.

‘I don’t know either,’ he finally answers. ‘But I’d rather it be where you are.’

He pauses, his jaw tight with uncharacteristic hesitation.

‘If you’ll have me,’ he adds finally, his voice low, barely audible.

Gladiolus bends down to place the steaming mug of tea in Ignis’s hands.

‘I’d like that,’ he simply says.

Ignis’s smile is blinding. Gladiolus can’t remember the last time he saw it. Altissia, maybe, all those years ago. They haven’t seen much of each other since they lost Noctis to the crystal, only getting back together in time to lose him all over again. Gladio is surprised by how grateful he is at Ignis’s request. Back then, they went their separate ways to deal with their guilt and failure on their own. Now that the war is won, however, tackling the new reality alone seems too tall an order.

They leave one morning. They don’t know where they’re going, but it hardly matters. They ride with a supply truck down to Hammerhead, then continue on foot. The Leide desert is a no man’s land. The sand is soft and sticky, mixed with enough ash to turn it grey. There are no plants, only corpses of vines and a few skeletal trees that raise their dead branches to the sky in a last scream of anguish. Animals and monsters have disappeared.

They hoped they could hunt to survive, but it seems a futile endeavour in this lunar landscape. They ration their supplies and press on.

Duscae looks more hopeful. Marginally so. They encounter grove after grove of dead trees, but green moss is growing on the rotten, disintegrating trunks, and sometimes they even find an odd patch of grass, shrivelled and dry, ill-looking but surviving.

The lakes are covered in heavy brown foam and smell like a thousand behemoths left to decay in the sun. They tie their shirts around their faces when the trail brings them close. But once or twice, the water bubbles and the foam shivers and breaks apart. Life is still struggling in the depths.

They keep south of the collapsed silhouette of the Disc. Progression becomes difficult. Demonic storms have torn the ancient mountain to pieces, the plain is strewn with debris and a thousand rocks. Many a granite arc has collapsed, adding to the chaos. For the first time, Ignis is slowing them down, struggling with the uneven terrain. His face is grim, covered with sweat as he trips on loose stones, and extends a hand out looking for purchase. He wipes his forehead with his glove leaving a trail of mud behind.

‘Take my arm,’ Gladio says.

Ignis freezes, hesitates.

‘Sorry,’ he starts.

‘Don’t apologise. Just take my arm.’

Ignis does. They don’t speak much after that.

Finally, they get out of the rock maze and reach Saxham. They find unexpected activity there. An older couple - in their fifties at least - are trying to bring the family farm back to life. They have a couple of garulets they walk for hours every day, as they look for grazing, before heading back to till the land in the evening. The beasts look thin but healthy, the earth grey and barren.

The farm used to be large and prosperous. The couple show Gladiolus photographs of luxuriant fields and herds of fat, stocky garulas. All that’s left now is crumbling fencing and a couple of sheds full to the brim with rusting machinery and tools.

‘Need a hand?’ Gladio says.

They don’t have anywhere else to be, after all.

‘What would you want in exchange?’ the man asks, wary.

Their world is a harsh place and Gladiolus can’t blame him for being cautious.

‘A set of tools. All I need to work a small field.’

The words come tumbling out, unplanned and surprising. But it seems like a good idea. Tools like those seem more important than a sword in this reshaped land. Ignis turns towards him at the words, his face impassive, hidden behind his glasses. He doesn’t say anything.

The woman nods.

‘That we can spare. That’s fair.’

‘Great. What do you need?’

‘The paddock is not secure. We have to hobble the beasts at night and we still worry about them getting stolen or wandering off. But we can’t spare the time to fix it. You rebuild that paddock for us, you get your tools.’

‘You’ve got yourselves a deal.’

Gladiolus and the man shake hands.

They start the next day. Finding wood is easy - dead trees abound - but they have to walk a good mile and half to find some that is dry and sturdy enough for their purpose. Gladio cuts the trees down, chops them to the size of fence posts. Ignis strips the bark, dead branches and leaves. The work is efficient. Sometimes Ignis hums old songs from the North country, clear notes stolen by bursts of wind. Gladiolus listens and enjoys the peace.

After a couple of days, they have enough raw material to start the work back at the farm. It takes them a good week. Gladiolus digs out the old posts, replaces them with new ones. They have no nails or ties, so he carves notches in the posts for the bars to sit in. Ignis finds an old pot of creosote and a brush. He ruins a pair of gloves treating the wood and checking his work as he goes.

Gladiolus is pleased with their payment. The tool selection is extensive and brand new. If anything over a decade old can be considered new. They pack everything, wave goodbye and start walking westward again. Their burden has increased but they square their shoulders and don’t slow down. They share strips of dried meat that tastes like rubber for lunch.

‘What are the tools for?’ Ignis asks.

Gladiolus shrugs by reflex. Ignis’s glasses burn with the glare of the midday sun.

‘I don’t know,’ Gladio says. ‘I just have a feeling they’ll come in handy.’

‘There won’t be much fighting to be done, will there?’

‘Not anymore.’

They don’t say anything else, but the regret - laced with guilt - emanating from their words is obvious. Their story is slipping into the grasp of history now; there will be no do-over.

They camp at a crossroad that night. North towards Lestallum, west to the Cleigne forests. It should be an easy choice. They need supplies. Hunting has proven unfruitful, as has foraging for edible plants. The odds of starvation increase with each passing day. Yet, they can’t bring themselves to take the road to the city. It’s broken and full of potholes, but what’s left of the asphalt resounds mournfully under their boots. It’s easier in the wilderness. The landscape is monotonous enough that they don’t have to wonder if they’ve walked that trail before, if they’ve rested in that grove, if they’ve fished in that pond. Years of demonic winds have changed the topography enough that even Gladiolus with his legendary survival skills struggles to recognise old landmarks. The city will be different. The same way Insomnia was. It hasn’t changed enough to hide their own memories from them.

Ignis readjusts his pack, more sullen than he has been since they left the capital behind. Gladiolus doesn’t need to ask to see the fight his overly analytical mind is waging with his emotions.

‘Let’s get to River Wennath,’ Gladio suggests when it becomes clear neither of them is going to admit to what’s holding them back. ‘It always had rapid waters, maybe that helped it fare better than the lakes. If it hasn’t, we’ll head up north to resupply.’

Ignis nods, relieved for now.

‘Sounds sensible.’

They take the western road, reach the river after a day and half; the sight of it is promising. There are no foul smells, and the water runs fast and clear. The banks are covered with dead bushes and vines, unstable, ready to crumble into the river if stepped on; but every so often a patch of vivid green fights its way out of the sandy earth, happily celebrating the return of sunlight. Gladiolus hasn’t seen such bright colours since Hammerhead - the last place they’ve been where heroic efforts kept the lights powered throughout the dark years.

Gladiolus doesn’t say anything. He takes Ignis’s hand, guides it to the nearby bush, places a polished, thick leaf under his fingertips.

‘There aren’t many,’ Gladio says. ‘But they seem strong.’

‘This looks better?’

There’s a slight hesitation in the question - as always when Ignis has to ask - but it’s definitely a question.

‘Better than anywhere we’ve been through so far. I wonder if there are fish.’

‘Sweet heavens, please.’

‘Tired of dried meat?’

‘ _You_ are tired of it too. And you’re a meat junkie.’

‘Yeah. The dried stuff is not particularly tasty though. Cup noodles sound pretty good now, don’t they?’

‘The cooking gods forgive me, but indeed, they do.’

In a whole afternoon of fishing, Gladiolus only manages to get a small carp, barely longer than his hand. It’s still the best thing they remember eating when they share it later - roasted over the fire with no condiments or spices.

Professor Yaeger runs into them the next day as they pack up their rudimentary camp. Gladiolus doesn’t recognise her right away. She looks older, her hair buzzed close to her skull and peppered with grey, her skin darker, sunburnt as if she has been soaking up every ray of light she could since it came back. She’s dressed in the same hunter garb as the two men who follow her.

‘Well, I’ll be damned,’ she says when she sees them.

Ignis doesn’t pause, unaware of how much she has changed, unaware of the sadness in her eyes when she stares at him and realises the extent of his injuries.

‘Professor,’ he greets her, never one to forget a familiar voice.

‘What are the two of you doing here?’

They pause. While they understand - emotionally, instinctively - the purpose of their wanderings, putting it into words is difficult.

‘We’re taking stock,’ Gladio tries.

‘Checking on the state of affairs,’ Ignis adds. ‘What about you?’

‘Looking for specimens. Everybody is busy saving livestock and chocobos. It’s understandable. Everybody’s hungry, fuel is worth more than gold and most of the roads are still impassable. But we have precious little time to try and help the ecosystems recover, at least to some extent.’

Gladiolus sighs.

‘We haven’t seen many living things around these parts. A few fish, a couple of plants, that’s it.’

‘Yes, that’s what I would expect. Many fish survived by gathering below the lights at Lestallum power station. It was always a frenzy there. We pulled basketfuls from the water every day that had died asphyxiated because they had no room to swim. Land creatures didn’t fare as well, but we have a few live ones. We’ll breed the ones we can. Out here, I’m mostly looking for remains or unhatched clutches. It won’t happen any time soon but if we can preserve enough genetic material, in a few decades, we might be able to bring some of those species back.’

‘A remarkable endeavour.’

‘Glad you think so. No-one else thinks it’s a priority, except for the hunters. They get it.’

They share tea. Sania shows them the seadevil eggs she found. They won’t be viable, but are precious all the same.

One of the hunters finally asks.

‘You’re headed back to Lestallum too?’

This time, Gladiolus doesn’t hesitate.

‘No, we were going to head further south.’

Ignis sips his tea. Gladio finds his silence unnerving. He’s become so much quieter during those past few years. But now is not the time nor the place to address this.

‘There isn’t much to see there. A few caves have endured, but the rest…’

‘Still. We want to see for ourselves.’

Sania sighs, waves a hand in defeat.

‘I’ll make you a deal. We only need a couple days of rations to get back to Lestallum. We’ll leave you the rest of it, but if you find any good specimens on your travels - of any kind, you’ll save them and bring them to me as soon as you can.’

‘That’s generous. And fair. Thank you.’

They say their goodbyes. Gladiolus waits until their chance encounter disappears behind a bend of the river before he speaks.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘We should have talked about this first.’

‘I told you I’d go with you. Where matters little. And if I’m perfectly honest, not having to make that call is rather pleasant.’

Ignis is smiling, fond and sad all at once.

‘You lead, I follow. If I have a problem with it, I’ll tell you.’

‘As long as you tell me.’

‘I’m not known for holding my tongue.’

‘That used to be true. But you’ve changed. We all have.’

Ignis chuckles, a disquieting contrast with the blank severity of his glasses.

‘Hard not to, given the circumstances. So tell me, o great leader, where are we headed then?’

‘You remember the crazy old lady who lived in the thicket?’

‘The witch?’

‘Yeah. She knew a lot; and that kind of knowledge might be of use right now.’

‘You think she’s still there?’

‘Honestly, I doubt it. But someone should check it out.’

‘And by someone, you mean us?’

‘Why not?’

‘Can’t argue with that logic.’

They follow the river for the next few days. They don’t try to fish again, against their best judgement; their new provisions won’t last more than a couple of weeks, three if they skip their evening meal. Supplementing them whenever possible would be the smart course of action. Yet, the fishing lines repulse them the same way Lestallum did. They’d rather avoid them if given a choice.

They reach Maidenwater at the end of the fourth day, under torrential rain. The water tastes acidic but it doesn’t burn the way it used to during the long night. It will take time for all demonic energies to be washed away; still, it’s another sign that Eos is trying to recover. There’s no sign of life around the water. Gladiolus remembers them having to fight their way through herds of sahagins to cross the river. It was another world, he thinks.

There’s no reason to make for the haven, and many to avoid it, so they camp on the smooth rocks listening to the stream swelling with the rain. Everything is soaked, no dry wood to be found to start a fire. They sit side by side under a hanging boulder. The rain falls at a steep angle in the gushes of wind, whips at their skin with a thousand icy needles, mocks their meagre shelter.

Ignis takes off his glasses to wipe his face and doesn’t put them back on. His hair is falling to the side, surprisingly long when not styled back. He looks like the gaunt, haunted shadow of the serious and spirited young man he once was. Gladiolus’s chest aches. He doesn’t say anything. Sleep is hard to come by.

Dawn brings clear skies. The heavens’ tantrum is over. The old bridge is a collapsed skeleton a few yards downstream. They cross the river half-walking, half-swimming, holding their packs over their heads. They reach the edge of the forest that used to surround the thicket. It’s now a thicket in its own right. Most of the vines, brambles and trees are dead, but they only succumbed after erasing trace of any path. The mesh of vegetation is impenetrable and adorned with thorns as thick as Gladiolus’s thumb. They’ve come too far, however, to give up now.

They walk the woodland edge for a while, looking for a vestige of the ancient trail. In vain.

‘Going to have to do this the hard way then,’ Gladiolus mutters finally.

They share what they remember of the topography, take their machetes out, decide on a place to start. Ignis goes first, slicing his way through the plants, Gladio widening and tidying the path - more akin to a tunnel - they dig into the undergrowth. They keep going. Soon they are so deep into the thicket that daylight struggles to filter through. They make their way into an ever-crepuscular world. Gladiolus feels out of time, as if this one place had become suspended somewhere beyond his comprehension to avoid falling into the long night with the rest of Eos. There’s a mystical quality to the atmosphere. He finds himself whispering when he speaks without knowing why. Ignis’s answers are monosyllabic at best. He can probably feel it too, the sense of otherness becoming more evident by the minute. Yet, it doesn’t feel dangerous, only curious and expectant.

As often Ignis’s impeccable sense of direction impresses Gladiolus. Despite his own top-notch survival skills, the lack of familiar visual cues is jarring and by mid-morning he has no idea where they’re headed. Ignis presses on without as much as a pause to catch his breath.

They haven’t talked about what they were up to during the long night. Neither of them seemed keen to breach the subject, but it is clear - as it was when they met again to wait for their King in Hammerhead - that Ignis has worked hard to not have to rely on anyone. The realisation made Gladiolus both proud and sad back then; it’s no different now.

Towards the end of the afternoon, as they wonder whether they should head back out of the trees or spend the night where they are without a fire, the vegetation becomes sparser. They hardly have to cut through any branches anymore, but only push them out of their way.

‘Let’s keep going,’ Gladio says. ‘Something’s changing.’

‘Indeed.’

Ignis’s gloved hand follows the course of a bramble that yields easily under his fingers. It’s careful, almost a caress.

Another hundred yards and the branches open like pulling a curtain. The clearing is barren, sand and hoary grass crumbling into dust. It resembles a meteor crater except for the small wooden house still standing, its back to a rock face. High above, the skeletal forest looms.

‘We found it.’

It doesn’t sound like a question but Gladiolus agrees anyway, just in case. They step through the miniature wasteland. Ash sticks to their soles. Ignis freezes, a hand on the pommel of his dagger; Gladio didn’t hear anything but movement catches his eye, a small ball of black and brown and grey fur stretching on one of the windowsills.

Gladio chuckles.

‘What is it?’

Definitely a question this time.

‘A cat. Or the shadow of one, it’s fur and bones.’

The cat jumps on the crumbling stone wall that surrounds the shack, standing its ground as they come closer. When they’re but a couple of meters away, it lets out an inviting sound, halfway between a purr and a miaow. Ignis - always fearless - offers his hand. The creature sniffs it before pushing its head under the palm enthusiastically, begging for a fuss. Ignis obliges and laughs - a small, almost silent, but content laugh.

The cat is purring now, a happy rumble, surprisingly loud for the stunted, sickly-looking animal.

‘How is this furball alive?’

‘Indeed.’

‘You don’t think…’

Gladiolus doesn’t finish, walks to the front door, knocks twice. They wait. After a few seconds, Ignis shakes his head.

‘Nothing’s moving in there.’

Gladio pushes the door open. It swings slowly, complaining with a grating, high-pitched creak. Rust dust falls from the hinges. The air inside is stale. He coughs a couple of times, the mustiness irritating his throat.

The cabin is small and minimally equipped. To the left, a kitchen with a few cupboards and a solid wooden table. To the right, a fireplace, an old armchair on a threadbare rug and bookshelves filled with glass vials and old moth-eaten books. A thick layer of dust billows around Gladiolus’s shoes as he walks in. No one has been here in a long time; yet, it feels like the previous occupant disappeared suddenly. Nothing has been packed or tidied away. A copper pot rests on the cold stove, a blanket is haphazardly thrown over the back of the armchair, a large wooden bowl, a cutting board and a knife are laid out on the kitchen table near a bunch of long-dead herbs still tied together with a piece of string.

Despite the state of dilapidation, the house is welcoming; a home rather than the garden shed it mimics from the outside. Gladiolus hasn’t seen a place like this in a long time. Ignis follows him inside. His forefinger draws a trail in the dust on top of a chest of drawers.

‘No one’s been living here for a long while.’

‘Doesn’t look like it. The old lady probably left when things got too dicey,’ Gladiolus agrees. ‘There used to be a well a short walk from the clearing. I’ll go check on it.’

They have enough water for another day or so, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared. Ignis frowns, looks like he’s going to object; in the end, he doesn’t say anything. Gladiolus knows what he’s thinking. Even if the well is still there, years of falling demonic ash and decaying vegetation will have rendered it all but useless. Still, it’s worth a look.

He finds it easily, a hole only a couple of feet deep surrounded by the remnants of a brick rim. There’s something odd about it. The low wall didn’t fall to ruins. Stones are missing. Gladiolus jumps down and kneels on top of the well. It’s covered in soil mixed with the usual ash, but as he digs into it, using his palms as shovels, he finds the first broken bricks, fragments of mortar and old, rich, brown earth. As he suspected, someone filled the well and collapsed the brick wall on top of it. He thinks back to their short time here on their way to Altissia, how the old witch had looked at Noctis, at Prompto, as if she knew secrets she wasn’t supposed to; that no one was supposed to know back then. Someone had wanted to save the well, someone who must have known what was coming. There’s a chance water is still running clear, deeper, protected by thick layers of stones and dirt. But there’s little for Gladio to do that evening, so he heads back, picking up dry wood for the fire on his way.

The sun is setting and by the time he reaches the house, he can hardly see through the half-light. All he hears is the cat still purring. His pack is where he left it, against the foot of the table. He finds the oil lamp and lights it. Oil is expensive but easier to come by than batteries. He abandoned electric lamps long ago.

Ignis is sitting in the armchair, the cat settled on his lap. At first glance, he appears asleep but his hands are moving a soft bristle brush through the animal’s fur. After his accident, long-engrained habit made him tilt his head and dart his eyes as if he could see what he was doing. Not anymore. His eyes stare straight ahead into the fireplace - unseeing, his hands keep moving gentle and precise.

‘The well has been filled,’ Gladio says, ‘before it all went to shit, I think.’

‘You don’t think it’s been tainted.’

Again, not a question.

‘Hopefully not. But the only way to know for sure would be to dig it up.’

He investigates the fireplace, uses a broom to check the patency of the chimney. Soot falls down all over his arms and makes him cough, but it looks safe enough. The fire starts easily, the dry wood and grasses crackling away happily. There’s an odd smell filling the room and he remembers the green smoke that escaped the chimney stack during their first visit. He doubts if even the Astrals knew what the old witch was burning.

Gladiolus turns off the lamp to save the oil. The fire provides limited light but it’ll do for now. He turns towards Ignis to ask him if he wants supper but pauses, perplexed.

‘Well, I’ll be damned.’

‘What?’

‘The cat. I thought she was some kind of mottled colour, all brown and black and grey, but it must have been dirt and ash. She’s completely black now.’

It makes little difference to Ignis but he still hums softly, filing that tidbit of information away as he always does.

‘You know the wooden bowl on the table?’

‘What about it?’

‘There’s a piece of paper under it. It might be nothing, but would you have a look if anything’s written on it?’

‘Of course.’

Gladiolus sits on the plush carpet, leans towards the fire to see better. The edges are torn, the piece barely wider than his palm and made of cheap lined paper. Faded ink is still visible, a spidery scrawl so small he has to squint to decipher it.

‘For tomorrow,’ he reads.

The large bowl is filled with a clear blue liquid - elixir by the smell - covering hundreds of shrivelled bulbs. Many are split and rotten, but a good number seem intact.

They eat dried meat and rice crackers. Gladio has seen many people bursting with joy and relief since the long night ended, but none have been as delirious as the little cat is when he tears a square of meat and gives it to her. She almost chokes as she gobbles it down, then miaows loudly and rolls on the carpet, wedging herself against his thigh. Ignis laughs. Gladiolus stares at him, the parted lips, the high cheekbones, the empty eyes reflecting the firelight. For once, he doesn’t look exhausted or hunted, only content and relaxed.

This is a good place, Gladiolus thinks, a place they could settle.

The assertion surprises him. It will soon be winter. The cabin is falling to ruins and miles from any help or resources; staying makes little sense. It will be a harsh, perilous endeavour. And yet, he doesn’t fight the urge. He knows that’s what they’re going to do. What they must do. This is a good place, a healing place, and they both could use some of that.

There’s no bed so they spread extra blankets from the old wardrobe on the carpet in front of the fire and settle in their sleeping bags. It’s more comfort than they’ve had in weeks. Sleep comes easily.

They start working on repairs without discussing their plans. They eat into their provisions. Gladiolus spends the following week fixing the roof while Ignis makes good progress digging down the well. Eventually, they find clear water, cold as ice but free of the pervading taste of ash. Another day, they tear away the patches of wire netting surrounding what used to be the witch’s herb garden, cut some wooden posts and hike back to the river to build a funnel fishing trap. It’s vast enough that fish can’t find the exit but are able to swim comfortably inside.

Afterwards, one of them only has to walk down every two or three days, catch the larger fish and release the smaller ones or the ones with a belly full of eggs. Good catches are rare but they know not to demand too much of the river. They’d rather invest in the future. Besides, neither of them has the time nor the inclination to use a fishing rod anymore. They have much to do before frost comes.

Gladiolus smiles fondly but doesn’t comment when Ignis calls the cat Ebony.

 

The first winter is mild. Gladio goes to Lestallum a few times for supplies and to bring Sania the specimens they’ve gathered; she tells him scientists think the weather is still affected by the demonic dust suspended in the higher layers of the atmosphere, but they don’t expect it to last. Ignis offers to come with him but Gladiolus turns him down.

‘You can’t leave Ebony alone,’ he says.

‘She’ll be fine.’

They bicker for a while. In the end, Gladiolus leaves alone and by the time he reaches the city he’s glad he did. It doesn’t feel as bad as he feared. Yes, the memories are still there - more raw than he’d like, but they’re not at the forefront of his mind. He thinks of the house in the woods, of Iggy and the damn cat waiting for him. He’s got a place to return to; it makes all the difference. He speaks to the builders that are carrying work all over the city, asks for advice and buys tools.

During the next four months, they renovate the house, change every piece of wood. They raise the floor a couple of feet off the ground, double the walls and insulate them with earth and dry vegetation, pierce a few more windows. By the time they’re done, the cabin looks like a house, small and amateurish, but a house not a shack. They even have steps leading to the front door that Gladiolus is unreasonably proud of and Ebony loves to lounge on.

They kept the house the same size. One room. The kitchen left of the entrance, a couple of armchairs and a new plush carpet to the right in front of the fireplace. They could have made it bigger, but they didn’t. Gladiolus likes what they’ve found. It’s enough. After all they’ve been through, they’re not greedy; having a peaceful place to call their own is enough. He suspects Ignis feels the same way, but he doesn’t ask.

They eat the occasional fish and dry, thin bread Ignis makes with water and the powdered white flesh of roots he has an uncanny sense for finding deep in the ground even in the middle of the ghost forest. Gladiolus wonders how he learnt this, what happened to him all those years they were apart. Gladio mostly protected civilians and their settlements, ate cans of beans well past their sell-by date, dusty noodles on good days; on special occasions, chocobo greens and mushrooms grown under electrical floodlights. But the few times he saw Ignis, he was always out and about hunting, more often than not on his own. He hadn’t thought about what he had to do, to learn, in order to survive that lifestyle back then. But he doesn’t ask this either. There are topics that are best left alone.

He spends the rest of the winter deciding on a plot to work on in the spring. The space in front of the house receives too much shade, so he ventures a bit further into the wood, finds a clearing. It’s a ten-minute walk from the house, only five from the well, and lying in the grass he can feel the warmth of the sunlight even in the middle of February. It’s perfect. He busies himself cleaning the plot, pulling dead roots and brambles off the ground. He tidies the path too.

When he gets home, the house is always plunged in darkness, whether Ignis is inside or not. He’s used to it by now, lighting one of the candles he brought back from Lestallum and checking if his roommate is there and what he’s doing. Cooking. Petting the cat. And one evening, sitting at the kitchen table, his gloves neatly arranged beside him, sorting out the bulbs they’ve saved, the ones he calls the ‘tomorrow seeds’ because of the cryptic note. Gladiolus stands in the doorway and watches as Ignis feels each bulb in turn with long aristocratic fingers that seem ill-fitted for such a crude task. There’s a sensitivity to his touch, however, a certitude when he puts them aside or back in the bowl that tells Gladiolus all he discerns through that sole contact.

‘Are you going to stand there all night?’

Gladiolus laughs, steps inside and pulls up a chair.

‘How bad is it?’

‘Hmm… about a third still feel rotten, the rest might do. I think. You do realise I have no experience with that kind of thing?’

‘I trust your instincts.’

‘Charmer.’

Ignis is smiling.

‘Eh, considering how much of the cooking you do, it’s in my best interest to stay on your good side.’

‘Very true.’

For the next two weeks, he tills the soil, over and over again, thoroughly. Turning it, letting it breathe, giving it time to settle. Rinse and repeat. He learns from an old book the witch left behind. Some pages are missing, others have been eaten by book lice, but he gets the gist of it. He enjoys the work, the physical exhaustion, the minimal clothing Iggy makes fun of him for. He’s so tanned, the tattoo lines don’t stand out on his skin as much as they used to.  He almost feels like a different person. Almost.

The frost disappears. The first spring thunderstorms come and pass, violent, illuminating the cabin in flashes so bright Gladio startles awake. He sits up, watches Ignis sleep for a while. They’ve abandoned the sleeping bags, got more blankets. Sleeping in front of the open fire is nice, like a never-ending holiday trip. Gladiolus knows they’re running away. They’ve been running away from the moment Noct said goodbye. But he doesn’t care. If that’s what they want to do from here on, he’d like to see someone tell them they haven’t earned that right.

When the weather settles, he chooses ten bulbs and covers them with dark soil from the riverbanks in a shallow planter by the kitchen window. Seven green shoots appear after a few days. They’re smaller than his pinky nail, fragile and beautiful. He spends a long time staring at them, long enough for Ignis to ask him what’s wrong.

‘I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen anything that green,’ he says.

Long ago, he would have worried about seeming insensitive telling Ignis about colours and beauty, but the world is what it is - scars and all - and they’re both past fighting it. Ignis’s answering smile is fond.

Gladio repots the shoots, giving them increased soil depth to encourage root growth. He’s not sure what they are. He wishes he knew. For now, he sticks with the general advice he found in the gardening book. Then he waits and he hopes.

‘They won’t grow any faster with you staring at them,’ Ignis points out the third day. He looks amused but there’s an undercurrent of wariness to his words that sends Gladiolus outside. Obsessing won’t do either of them any good.

He walks down to the river - there’s no good catch that day, then cuts wood, brings water from the well to fill the reservoir attached to the kitchen wall. They replaced it before the winter, one of the few luxuries - along with the plush carpet they sleep on - they’ve allowed themselves.

By the time he comes back, two of the seedlings have browned. They die the next day, but the others are still growing strong. Gladiolus doesn’t feel disheartened, the plants are fighting for their survival. He can’t ask any more of them. Once they have grown a healthy ball of roots, he moves them a third time - carefully - to his freshly tilled plot. It looks enormous compared to the five little plants, barely two leaves each, big as his thumb now. He falls asleep in a great mood that night.

The next morning, his efforts begin to fall apart. Two more of the plants are but grey skeletons that disintegrate into ash as soon as he touches them. The rest look sad and struggling but still fighting.

Over the next two months, Gladiolus spends hours each day looking after the sickly seedlings. He builds an articulated wall to protect them from the wind when it gets too strong, he gets up in the middle of the night to cover them when rain falls too heavily. He runs back to Lestallum to buy expensive plant food - out of date like everything is these days.

Nothing works. The seedlings persist at first, one of them gets as high as Gladio’s palm. But it’s in vain. One by one, they die, turn brown at first, then grey, decaying much faster than they should. Gladiolus feels powerless. He doesn’t dare awaken any more bulbs, not until he understands what he’s been doing wrong. The last plant struggles for another couple of weeks; but inevitably, one afternoon, he finds it grey and leaning. A touch of his fingertip and it crumbles into fine ash over the brown earth. He tries to find the bulb, but it has rotted away.

He doesn’t feel it coming right away. But soon, he finds himself sitting on the kitchen bench, his back to the table and his head in his hands. Sorrow, loss, grief wash over him in familiar waves. The strength of his emotions surprises him. Not again, he thinks. Not again. But as much as he wishes for escape, his mind clings to the pain, leaving him no way out.

Ignis gets home at dusk. Gladiolus listens to the door opening, the boots being set down near the entrance, followed by a basket - mushrooms from the thicket’s caves probably. He doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t look up; and yet, Ignis’s hands settle on his shoulders. He’s solid and warm when Gladiolus leans into him. Gentle fingers stroke his hair.

‘Oh, Gladio…’ Ignis says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Gladiolus tries to answer, manages little but a dry sob. He feels broken and pitiful. No-one has this kind of reaction over losing a few seedlings. Except deep down, he knows - and he’s pretty sure Ignis does too - this isn’t about the plants. It has never been about the plants.

He cries silently into the fabric of Ignis’s shirt. He’s tired and hurting. He’s not sure what he wants, what he was trying to do. It all seems so insignificant. The hand in his hair is nice, soothing. They stay like this for a long time. The night has fallen outside and the cabin is dark. Gladiolus doesn’t mind, he feels hidden from the world and right now it’s a blessing. Ignis’s free hand is still on his shoulder. He takes it in his own, threads their fingers together and holds it against his heart. He doesn’t think about the consequences or the implications. He does it because he wants to. The hand stroking his hair pauses for an instant but soon resumes its course.

 

 

When Gladio finally opens his eyes again and lifts his head from the comfortable cradle of Ignis’s shirt, he can see nothing except for two luminescent eyes staring at him in the darkness. From the height, their owner is perched on top of the armchair.

‘Your damn cat is jealous,’ he says with a laugh that hurts his too dry throat.

‘Or she’s worried about you.’

Ignis doesn’t add the ‘so am I’ but the implication is obvious enough. Gladiolus releases him with a sigh.

‘Thanks, Iggy. Sorry about the…’

He hesitates. He wants to make a wide encompassing but vague gesture instead of settling for a word, but that wouldn’t be any help given his interlocutor. So what? Meltdown, perhaps? Ignis doesn’t let him finish.

‘Get yourself some light. Let’s have dinner.’

Gladio doesn’t ask how he knows they’ve been in the dark this whole time. Ignis’s ability to perceive light is too limited to differentiate between the half-light of a candle and full darkness. But it doesn’t matter. His preternatural awareness is a fact of life by now.

Gladiolus spends another couple of days moping about, waiting for his mind to overcome the grief. He’s done it enough times before that he knows it’s only a question of time. Eventually, he wakes up one morning in better spirits. He plans, decides to go exploring further and see if he can scavenge anything useful for them, maybe even find a bit of paid work. They’re mostly self-sufficient in good weather, but the cold will come back soon enough and with it harsher living conditions. Besides, he would rather like to supplement roots and mushrooms with some other foodstuffs. And as stoic as he is, Ignis would probably agree.

Gladiolus hikes all the way down to Cape Caem. He crosses paths with a hunter who shows him the bivalves he found on the coast. For the rest of his trek he doesn’t see anyone else. The lighthouse is in ruins, the upper third collapsed onto the stairway entrance. There’s nothing of use in the rubble.

He finds a large wooden box by what used to be a field and is now a collection of dried-up grass. He forces the rusty padlock open with his hunting knife. Inside are three packs of carrot seeds. As far as treasures go in their broken world, this one is pretty sweet. He hides them in the pockets he’s sewn to the inside of his trousers. He’s heard things recently, muggings on the roads, violence breaking out in remote areas between starving people. The power structure is centred around Insomnia and the rest of the country is still a no man’s land, left to fend for itself. Gladiolus is not worried about the danger; whatever comes at him, he has handled worse before. Still, there’s no point in looking like a tasty morsel.

On his way back, he wanders to the east and finds the farm they built the paddock for all those months ago. The pastures are filled with harsh, dry grass; not much to look at but good enough for the garulets. The crops are struggling.

‘It’s that damn ash,’ the old woman tells him. ‘It clogs the soil, prevents it from draining properly.’

‘It’s not about drainage; it’s a sickness left behind by those fucking demons. It cursed the land. And the bloody Astrals are no help.’

The farmer shakes his fist at the sky with a few chosen words that make even the career soldier in Gladiolus blush. The wife rolls her eyes. She takes him aside later that evening.

 

‘Don’t listen to him, he’s a bitter old crow. It’s about drainage.’

‘So what? Get rid of the ash?’

‘Yeah, but good luck doing that. The stuff is sticky.’

‘But if I could?’

‘Well, then all you’d have to do is loosen the soil, mix a bit of sand with it to let it drain better, and add good manure too. That should keep most crops happy. As long as you have sunlight, enough water and all the usual shebang.’

He stays for a few weeks, helping them with the chores that benefit from his strength. His payment is a sturdy wooden wheelbarrow loaded with bags of manure, as agreed. Pushing it back to Maidenwater is hard work, but he doesn’t mind. It’ll be worth it in the end. He can’t let himself doubt. When he finally gets back, he hides the barrow under a hanging rock, covers it with dead branches, then swims across the river. They thought about repairing the bridge, but they decided against it in the end. They don’t want to attract unwanted visitors. He’ll need a makeshift raft to move the bags across, but he has time to figure that out.

It’s mid-evening when he catches sight of the house, a sharp shadow against the starlight. Something soft and swift passes between his legs and he trips over it, years of balance training the only reason he doesn’t fall on his ass.

‘Damn cat.’

Ebony purrs, happy to be noticed and seemingly proud of herself.

‘You’re a walking hazard,’ he points out, before squatting down to pet her. He’s not wrong, but she’s a selective hazard. She never passes through Ignis’s legs. She sits on the ground and miaows at him for attention. Gladiolus is grudgingly impressed by how smart she has proven to be.

‘Iggy, it’s me,’ he calls as he gets to the steps.

He hears shuffling inside, the sound of the kitchen bench being pushed back as he opens the door.

‘Welcome back.’

A soft, uneven ball crunches under his feet as he reaches into the kitchen cabinet to find a candle.

‘Sorry, I walked on something.’

‘It’s nothing. Just paper.’

He’s all prepared for the catch-up conversation. _What’s new? How have you been? Anything I should know?_ But the words become irrelevant as soon as he sees the kitchen. There’s an old almanac open in front of Ignis, he’s torn several pages out and has piled them up in front of him. He’s got a glass pen and a small wooden bowl filled with a purplish liquid. His fingers are stained, and there’s a line across one of his cheeks.

The sight would be comical if not for the resolute, yet pained expression on Ignis’s face. Gladio comes to sit on the bench near him.

‘What are you doing?’ he asks, soft and careful.

‘Just practicing.’

Frustration echoes in the words. Gladiolus waits. It takes a moment but eventually Ignis sets the pen carefully on the table, wipes his hands on a cloth before passing them into his hair. He sighs.

‘I just thought…’ He pauses and hesitates for a few long seconds. ‘I thought maybe I could write about what happened. I thought it would matter. Telling the truth. Not the legend, or what they’re trumpeting all over, how goodness triumphed, how the Astrals blessed us. But what happened, what really happened. The good and the bad. And how unfair it all was. And yet, how dignified and selfless _he_ was to the end, how he gave himself away for all of us because we needed him to. I thought… I thought I ought to…’

Gladiolus doesn’t know what to say. Ignis’s dead eyes are too bright. It’s unsettling. So he doesn’t say anything, takes one of Ignis’s hands into his own.

‘I thought if I took it slow, it’d be easy enough. But I don’t know if I can. I can’t check any of it. I’ve been making ink with soot and berries, but I don’t know if it’s working.’

Gladio’s smudges the stain on Ignis’s cheekbone with his thumb.

‘It’s working.’

He picks up one of the pages from the table. The writing is skewed, messy, barely readable on top of the printed lines; a deformed mockery of Ignis’s neat and precise handwriting of old. He recognises a few verses from well-known poems, another paragraph from some strategy treatise. He can only decipher a few words of it.

‘Seemed a waste to use blank paper when I’m trying to remember how writing is supposed to work. You wouldn’t think that’s something you forget. Even when…’

Ignis makes a hopeless gesture towards his face. That’s the closest Gladiolus has ever seen him come to complaining about his blindness. He holds his hand tighter. The next words taste bitter but he has to offer them.

‘You could go back. To Insomnia, I mean. I’m sure they’ve got generators and a few old computers working by now. What you’re offering is important enough, they’d get you one. It’d still be an arduous task, but it’d be easier.’

He doesn’t insult Ignis by offering to take him. He knows full well that if he wants to go, he doesn’t need the help. Ignis pulls away, gets up and pours a glass of water. He empties it before talking again, his back to the room.

‘I don’t want to go anywhere.’

‘I don’t want you to,’ Gladiolus says, not trying to hide his relief.

‘How bad is it?’

Gladiolus picks up a crumpled page from the floor and smooths it out. He knows Ignis won’t forgive anything less than blunt honesty.

‘Still a way to go, but you’re getting better. The pages you crumpled I can’t read at all, the last ones take some getting used to, but I’d manage. It’ll be a lot easier once you use blank paper.’

‘Okay.’

Ignis gathers the loose pages, shuts them in the book. He’s tense and sullen, far from his usually even mood. Gladiolus can’t help himself. He catches his wrist to stop him.

‘I mean it, Iggy. I swear to you, this is going to work. You can do this.’

For an instant, he thinks Ignis is going to pull himself free again, maybe even storm out. But instead he lets out a deep, controlled breath and gives him a hint of a smile.

‘Thank you.’

‘No worries. I’ll help you. We can read through it together, I can annotate if anything is smudged.’

The frown comes back, but different, concerned.

‘You can’t put yourself through this, it’s not fair.’

‘Fair on who?’

‘On you. I’m talking about remembering, reliving all of it. I can’t ask you to do this with me.’

‘You’re not asking. I’m offering.’

‘Semantics.’

‘I want to do this, Iggy. You said you have to do it; what makes you think I’m any different? All it means is that neither of us have to do it alone.’

Ignis stills. Gladiolus has seen him at loss for words only a handful of times in his life, usually when Noctis was being unapologetically insufferable. Their beloved prince could be a brat at times. But this time it’s his doing; he feels oddly proud.

‘Fine,’ Ignis says finally. ‘But if it becomes too much, you will tell me. You won’t force yourself to go through it for my sake.’

His forcefulness reminds Gladio of the old days, when whatever Iggy decided went and all of them - royalty included - bowed their heads and followed along, trusting him to know best. There’s only one response he can give, only one that will be acceptable.

‘You have my word.’

They settle into a new routine. Chores and food gathering in the mornings. Gladiolus builds a rudimentary shed to protect the bags of manure from the elements. He gets soil and sand from the riverbanks, where the water has thoroughly washed the ash, fills deep wooden planters with the mix, and watches the Caem carrots grow. He starts to think he’s on the right track.

In the afternoon, Ignis sits at the kitchen table and writes. Progress is slow but he’s getting better with each passing day. Gladiolus helps him refine the ink recipe so it doesn’t fade away as quickly. Ignis cuts notches in the tabletop with one of his daggers, deep ones to align the page corners with, shallow ones to mark each line. He uses a plank of wood to cover the paper as he fills it to keep the lines separated. It works. Mostly. They go through it all and make corrections as needed in the evening, when Gladio reads the pages by the light of the fireplace. Ignis remembers so much, in such vivid details. But neither of them comment when the breath catches in Gladiolus’s throat and his voice falters for a moment.

Gladio busies himself as well. He digs trenches all around the clearing he chose for his plot, a foot deep. Then he proceeds to level the whole field by removing the top layer of soil, the one where demonic ash might linger. He doesn’t know who was right. The old woman and her drainage theory or her husband’s version of a curse. It doesn’t matter. He’s seen enough to believe both might well be true. In the end, the answer is the same.

That’s how they spend the end of summer and all of autumn, Ignis painstakingly writing, Gladiolus digging and moving mountains of earth. He’s racing against the weather, knows he has to be done before the first frost or the task will become much more difficult.

He doesn’t quite make it.

He comes out of the cabin one morning to find the ground hard as granite, covered in silver wisps of ice. Winter will not be mild this time around.

He finishes levelling up the field anyway. But it takes him two weeks to dig out an area he’d have done in two days before. Even at midday, the ground doesn’t fully thaw, and he feels like he’s chipping away at rock rather than scooping out soil. The calluses on his hands are hard and bleed despite the gloves. He sets his jaw and keeps going, until he’s done, until he’s levelled the field out completely. Ignis doesn’t offer any lecture, but makes him soak his hands for a full hour every night in a bowl filled with warm water and clay from the thicket’s waterfall basin. In the meantime, he works Gladiolus’s arms and shoulders, massaging the muscles as deeply as he can with the ball of his palms, and smoothing out stubborn knots with his fingertips. Gladio grits his teeth, exhaustion and soreness intertwined through his whole body. But little by little, he starts to relax and has to admit Iggy’s touch feels fantastic. As relieved as he is when the field is done, he knows he’s going to miss the massage sessions.

Winter is only getting started. The water in the well freezes over and they have to carry buckets up from the river and keep them inside the kitchen neatly aligned against the wall so Ignis doesn’t bump into them. The fire burns happily day and night - thankfully wood isn’t a scarce commodity, but the inside of the cabin - while warmer than the icy no man’s land outside - is still far from comfortable. They wear all the clothes they can - the few they have - and walk around with blankets around their shoulders. Thankfully, they have provisions. Dried mushrooms from the thicket, salted fish they put in barrels during the spring, some starchy beans Gladiolus found for sale during one of his summer trips. And of course, Caem carrots, small and deformed, but sweet and keeping for weeks.

In the end, they have to make do. There is nowhere else for them to go; and at least, they won’t starve. The nights are the worst. The cold seeps deeper into their bones with each passing hour and sleep eludes them. Gladiolus lies in the half-light of the fire, listening to his stoic companion shivering hard enough for his teeth to chatter. He’s offered to let him have the spot by the fireplace, but Ignis turned him down. He knows the cabin well enough to get up for a drink or to relieve himself without making the wooden floor creak a single time. Gladiolus sleeping between him and the rest of the house would be an unnecessary hazard. He’s never made a secret of how much he hates having to second-guess his surroundings. Living together, Gladio quickly learnt to put small items back into their exact place and to never move furniture without warning.

On the fourth night after the temperatures truly fell, Gladiolus has had enough. He has barely managed a couple of hours of patchy sleep the night before, and he knows they can’t keep going like this. Ignis is curled on to himself, his back to him. Gladio is too tired to hesitate. He wraps an arm around Ignis’s waist and gets as close as he can, tucking the blankets around them tightly to not let any more of the night air in.

Ignis stops shivering right away, but Gladiolus suspects it’s thanks to how tense he suddenly got, not because the cold vanished. That’s going to take a while.

‘Gladio…’ The tone is soft, uncharacteristically unsure.

‘Hm?’ he answers, striving to sound as innocent as he can. The last thing he needs is Iggy asking him to move when he’s finally starting to feel his toes again.

Ignis is silent for a long while, his breathing slow and controlled.

‘Nothing,’ he says eventually. ‘Good night.’

‘Night.’

It becomes a habit with an ease that they should question but studiously ignore. They struggle to get up in the morning, lounging under the blankets, soaking up as much warmth as they can before having to face the rest of the icy world. Gladiolus idly thinks one morning that it feels like a honeymoon, minus kisses and sex. His arm is heavy on Ignis, in case he gets some stupid idea - like trying to move. He can hear the wind outside, echoed by Ignis’s peaceful breathing. As harsh as it turned out to be, Gladiolus is enjoying their second winter together more than the first. He finds himself remembering at odd moments during the day what Ignis feels like under all these layers of clothing, how much leaner he’s gotten, the arc of his ribs obvious under Gladio’s fingertips. Part of it is the lack of decent nutrition - no one has been well fed during the past ten years, the rest is their new lifestyle.

The last time he went to Lestallum, Gladiolus caught sight of himself in one of the shop windows - the boards having finally come down, and he had to pause. The sight was hardly dramatic; yet, his silhouette had changed in a subtle but unmistakable way. He didn’t look like a fighter. While remaining impressively built, he’d lost bulk. His muscles were still strong enough to bend steel; yet, they weren’t the bulging assets of a highly trained soldier, but the elegant and perfectly balanced structure of men who hunt and work the land in the harshest of conditions, whose bodies are carved from being used as tools, rather than the result of a series of carefully thought-out exercises. His tanned skin, long hair and unkempt beard only added to the picture.

He liked it. He looked good, and in a corner of his mind he didn’t want to examine too closely, he enjoyed the difference. He enjoyed knowing that he was changing, that maybe one day he’d be able to hide in plain sight and outrun the past.

So he isn’t exactly surprised to notice the same changes in Ignis, the subtle alterations in his body, flexible as ever, but thinner, yet with a core of hidden strength one would do well to not underestimate. No, what surprises him is how much he enjoys those long hours plastered against each other - it helps with the cold of course, but he seeks more than warmth during those nights and as time passes it becomes more difficult to deny.

It is not about sex, or desire, he decides, as he cuts more wood for the fire. It’s about human contact. For all the year and a half they’ve spent together, for all they’ve achieved through joint efforts, for all the quiet discussions and support, they maintain a careful distance, cautious not to stir up memories, never mentioning the events that brought them here. They’ve been living alongside each other rather than together. Reading Ignis’s work in the evening has slowly started to break down the status quo. But now, the nights are tipping the balance even further and Gladiolus likes it. He likes it a lot. It feels good, it is good. And there’s no need to put it into words.

Weeks pass. It gets warmer. They shed clothing, push back a blanket or two. Gladiolus doesn’t let go of Ignis. Ignis still sinks back against him when he reaches out for him. They should talk about it. They don’t. The situation is comfortable and better undisturbed.

When the frost finally lets up, Ignis has written enough to talk to a publisher in Lestallum. The work is far from done - it only covers the political situation in Lucis prior to the invasion and introduces the main actors of the tragedy soon to unfold. Yet, as prideful as they are, they could use an advance on the publication. Everything is extortionate in a post-apocalyptical world and having some cash on hand wouldn’t hurt.

They walk to the city together but Gladiolus only passes through pushing the wheelbarrow he acquired the previous year, leaving Ignis to his affairs. The old farmer told him of the sand she used to bring down by truck from the shores of the Vesperpool.

‘Finest sand around, amazing for drainage. Let your soil breathe, doesn’t clog it up at all.’

Gladiolus hasn’t dug a whole field all by himself to cheapen out on the soil composition. So he keeps walking north. He arrives at the lake just in time to defend a cockatrice and her only chick against a band of poachers. He makes short work of them, bare-handed. They’re kids looking for a quick buck, but they should know better. He walks them back to the road between Lestallum and Meldacio to sit and wait for the next passing hunter. The poachers are the responsibility of the Hunters Guild after all, and he has other things to do. Besides, lecturing has never been his thing, Iggy was always too good at it for him to bother. And the few times he tried, well… those are memories he’d rather not recall. Traffic has increased again these days on the main roads, but it’s still a good couple of hours before he can get rid of his charge. He has plenty of time to reflect on how the tables have turned. He used to defend people from monsters - even got paid for it; now, he defends monsters from people out of the goodness of his heart. The universe is a turncoat.

The hunter who finally stops is grateful for his help. He’s a stocky, bullish man covered with more scars than Gladiolus. He shakes his head at the youngsters and says he’ll take them to the hunter HQ for processing. He also helpfully points out the closest sand grove.

‘What do you need it for, man?’

‘Improving the soil back at my farm,’ Gladiolus says, feeling like an imposter for pretending he has a farm and sounding vaguely like he knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t. On both accounts. But he prefers to keep it simple.

‘Farm, eh? What are you growing?’

His mind goes blank. He has no idea. The tomorrow seeds didn’t survive long enough last year to give him a good idea of what they are.

‘Carrots,’ he settles on. ‘And trying other things, you know, for the future.’

‘Sounds good, man. We need more people working the land. Astrals know that it seems bloody hard work from what I’ve seen.’

They say goodbye, Gladiolus heads back towards the lake. The hunter must have guessed he’s not a farmer - not by trade at least, but it matters little. Another fact about the apocalypse, it teaches people to keep out of business that’s not theirs. It’s better that way.

Gladiolus doesn’t need to tell the man how tired he is. He doesn’t have to admit that he’s not growing his field to help anybody, that he’s already given more than could be asked of anyone to this world, that he’s done. He’s working on his little corner of land because he wants to, because it’s meaningful, because he wishes to see greenery and colours again, if only to prove that it was all worth it, that they did save something fragile and beautiful, something that deserved to be protected, that deserved all - _who_ \- they sacrificed. And in some way he doesn’t quite understand yet, it is about grief, and about healing.

The walk back to the cabin - pushing a heavy wheelbarrow full of sand - is slow and tiring, but after being cooped up most of the winter Gladiolus enjoys it. The nights are still cold though; and despite knowing how to always find adequate shelter, he resents the loneliness.

So he keeps going when the night falls the last day, twenty miles from the cabin. He pushes through the exhaustion and makes it back in the early hours of the morning.

‘It’s me, Iggy.’

Trying not to wake Ignis is a hopeless endeavour, and he’d rather not find himself with a dagger to the throat. The ‘welcome back’ that answers him is adorably sleepy though. Not a qualifier he would usually use to refer to his serious companion but he’s too tired to even notice. He goes to the sink, pumps some water in a bowl and washes his hands and face before putting on some clean clothes - hemp pants and a linen shirt decades old. It’s warm enough now that Ignis hasn’t bothered lighting a fire. The cabin is dark and all Gladiolus can see are shadows when he lowers himself on their makeshift bed. He doesn’t think, doesn’t hesitate. Ignis is lying on his side, as always - his back to him. Stretching against him, and holding him close with one hand splayed over his chest, feels pleasantly natural. Gladio had been longing for it every night in the wilderness and he lets relief wash over him. It feels good. He’s come home.

Tension drains from Ignis as he sags back against him, so different from that first night, that first daring touch. The air is silent except for their muted breathing. A few long minutes pass, Gladiolus’s weary muscles relax one by one into the plush blankets.

‘I missed you,’ Ignis says.

‘So did I.’

Gladio draws him closer still, buries his face in his hair, and inhales deeply. Ignis smells of freshly baked root galettes and of the citrus soap they boiled last year. It’s all it takes to guide him into a dreamless slumber.

Spring passes in a flurry of work. Gladiolus spends a good deal of time with his head in books, comparing recommendations, trying to decide on what constitutes the best - yet versatile - soil mix when one doesn’t know what one is trying to grow. Unsurprisingly, most books do not cater to that particular set of circumstances. In the end, he spends days hauling bags around. Manure, sand, soil from the riverbanks and deep-water clay he has to dive into the thicket’s waterfall basin for. It’s a gamble but he suspects that with how long the forest has been dormant - or dead - and how little organic matter has been absorbed into the soil over the past decade, his plot can use the extra nutrients.

He notices some changes this year. Some of the branches - only a few in thousands - sports tiny green leaves on their extremities, they struggle to grow and open but they’re there, finally proving what they’d hoped all along. Life is still struggling and brewing in the forest. Gladiolus feels vindicated. If it’s still fighting, so will he. He’s a shield after all, that’s what he’s meant to do.

Ignis’s work is exacting but he’s made impressive progress when Gladio was away. They catch up in the evening, long hours spent in front of the fire, Ignis in the armchair, Ebony curled up in his lap, and Gladiolus leaning against his legs as he reads.

Sometime in the middle of the spring, Ignis hands him a chapter titled ‘The Battle of Altissia.’

‘I’m going for a walk,’ he says, ‘I can’t listen to you read this.’

Gladiolus doesn’t try to stop him. He sits and reads, feeling self-conscious, almost guilty as if peering at someone’s journal without permission. They’ve never talked about what happened in detail; they certainly never talked about how Ignis felt. But Ignis gave him the draft, and he keeps reading. It’s slow going. As he turns the pages, the handwriting becomes shakier, harder to decipher than usual. But the honesty, the fear and the pain are plain as day. He cries, cries like he hasn’t in a long time, until his eyes burn and he has to press the ball of his palms against them for relief. But the darkness is tinted with crimson and it doesn’t help.

In the end, he gets his breathing back under control and goes to the front door. Ignis walks out of the shadows when he calls. Gladiolus hugs him, as tight as he can.

‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s go to bed.’

He doesn’t want to let go and he’s ridiculously graceful their embrace has become so natural they don’t have to find an excuse to cling to each other.

They read the next chapters together. In the most poignant moments, Ignis’s hand comes and rests on Gladio’s shoulder, a silent request he always answers by linking their fingers together till the end.

One morning, as Gladio carefully spreads his pre-mixed soil over a corner of the plot, movement catches his eye, small and fleeting but unmistakable. His first thought is one of panic, he tries to remember where he’s left his hunting knife. Unexpected movement means danger, or so it has for years. The apathy of their broken world hasn’t done much to counteract that instinct. But a second, more careful glance, brings a smile to Gladiolus’s face. The brown sparrow hops on a branch above him, curious and interested. A wild bird is a welcome sight, one he had stopped hoping for.

They develop a routine. The sparrow watches him work, tweeting in encouragement every so often. At lunch, Gladio puts flakes of root galette in a tree hollow as an offering that the little bird gratefully accepts. It feels right, more so than any pompous oblation to the Astrals ever did. He worries when he finally brings this year’s seedlings out - another ten bulbs, all of them growing this time - that the bird will make short work of them. He hides and spies on the field, but the bird preens and flutters about, never coming close to the plants.

‘It knows what I’m trying to do,’ Gladiolus thinks, knowing the idea is preposterous and yet unable to shake it.

A couple of the seedlings die over the next month. The others keep growing to a foot in height, stronger than the previous year. But soon, another three turn grey and dry out. They don’t crumble into ash and Gladio finds the bulbs in the soil, soft and rotten - a rather underwhelming improvement, but an improvement all the same. He watches the plants, trying to guess what they’ll turn into. They don’t look like any crop he’s ever seen, their leaves long, stiff and angular. He waits, waters them, protects them as best he can. For the first time he has to pull weeds from around the seedlings. He’s careful about it. He digs the weeds out, plant them back into the earth on the edge of the plot. The world is still too barren to look down on any plant, even a twisted weed.

Sometimes, he wonders if Noct would be proud of him or if he would think he’s lost it, going from being the Shield of the Last King to an obsessive - but as yet rather unsuccessful - gardener.

Gladiolus messes up at the beginning of the summer. It’s not strictly speaking his fault and he had no way to predict what happens, but his unspoken status quo with Ignis gets shattered. It’s another night like they’ve had so many, Ignis’s back against his chest, Gladio’s arm around his waist, his fingertips unconsciously brushing against the soft skin where his shirt hiked up. He feels good, everything is perfect. At least, until Gladiolus is pulled out of his slumber by a death grip on his wrist and the sound of his name, not angry, but imperative. He blinks, shifts, trying to understand what’s wrong.

‘What? You’re okay?’

‘Wake up.’

Same tone as before. It dawns on him then that he’s feeling a bit too good, as does the erection he’s sporting and he’s been shamelessly rubbing against Ignis in his sleep.

‘Shit. Sorry. I’ll just…’

A moment later, he finds himself outside, in the trees to the east of the cabin. He ran. He fucking ran. And Ignis didn’t stop him. He’s angry at himself for his spectacular lack of timing. He’d been thinking lately, that maybe… maybe they ought to talk about that ‘thing’ they’re doing. But he wasn’t sure if he wanted that, if he wanted to risk that pretend peace they’d wrung out of all that had gone wrong. And now, he’s screwed it all up.

He leans back against a large trunk, the bark rough through his shirt. He readjusts himself with a sigh; he has privacy now but his mood has plummeted faster than his hard-on did. He can’t flee from his thoughts, the way he’s fled that awkward conversation. Refusing to question his motives is not an option anymore.

Does he want that? Does he want Ignis in this way or was his subconscious only playing tricks at the wrong moment? They had a nice balance up to this point, pleasant human contact, the perfect way to fight their loneliness without the risks of a real relationship. Gladio jerked off a couple of times a week while showering under the thicket waterfall, without thinking of anything - or anyone - in particular, just enough erotic flashes to get him there. He’s not a teenager anymore, it was more than enough. He suspects Ignis does the same, not that he’s ever asked him. He feels greedy for even thinking he might wish for more. They’re alive, they’re not starving, they have each other. He feels ungrateful, yet in the same breath remembers Ignis’s skin under his fingertips. He sighs, lets himself think of it for the first time, really think of it. And yes, he has to admit, he would very much like to push the cotton of the shirt higher, to drag his palm all across the long planes of Ignis’s body.

It’s been a long while. He remembers the girl he used to sleep with for a couple of years before Noct came back, the one he dubbed the ‘fiancee.’ It was never that serious. It wasn’t even that frequent. But he preferred for the others not to worry about him, and it was as good a distraction as any. Particularly Noctis. He wanted Noct to think they’d been fine waiting for him, that it’d been an exercise in patience without much hardship. Their King had gone through enough, so he told Prompto the story, knowing he’d eat it up and he’d have an ally. Ignis hadn’t believed a word of it, of course, and had made that plain. He knew him too well to believe Gladiolus would make such a promise to anyone, when his life wasn’t his own, when his word was only good until they got reunited with Noctis and he would have to take back the mantle of his sacred duty. Ignis hadn’t insisted, he’d just smirked and rolled his eyes and dropped the topic.

The idea to go back had never crossed Gladio’s mind. He had had fun with the girl, she was nice enough. But she’d have laughed at him if he’d pretended their dalliance was anything else but another way to find warmth during that too-long night. When the light came, everything looked different. And Gladiolus could see the damage, in him, on him, and on the other two - who like him, had been left behind. And he hadn’t missed her, hadn’t thought of her a single time until now.

He wonders then… If he could have anyone, anyone at all with him in the cabin to live that peaceful life with him, who would he choose? Past lovers and friends pass through his head, a silent procession of dead and lost people. And yet, none of them belong with him. Only Ignis does. And he doesn’t want anyone else. The rush of possessiveness that follows surprises him. When did he fall so far and hard for Ignis Scientia? He’s always liked the man, but this is different. There’s no denying it. Probably too many nights holding onto him as if he was an anchor for his sanity… or maybe before, maybe from that moment Iggy asked to go with him. Wherever he wanted.

They came to the cabin to find a peaceful life and they’ve managed to complicate it further than Gladio would have believed possible. His body doesn’t resent the idea the way his mind does. He doesn’t fight it, takes himself in hand. Soon enough, he comes with Ignis’s smile in his mind and his name on his lips. It feels good, but doesn’t help ease his guilty conscience. He doesn’t know what to do next. He doesn’t want to be selfish, he doesn’t want to soil what they’ve built together. He won’t ask for anything, if Ignis doesn’t feel the same way. He’ll wait for the _right time_ , he thinks, and talk to him then. He knows it’s an excuse. There will never be a time more right than this very morning. He tells his brain to shut up.

‘Nice dream?’ Iggy smirks at him when he enters the cabin.

‘Probably, I honestly don’t remember.’

He takes the mug Ignis hands him. It’s tea, or rather an approximation of tea, made with small red flowers they found on the riverbank and recognised from one of the witch’s books.

‘Sorry about earlier.’

‘Don’t sweat it.’

That’s it, that’s where the conversation ends. Ignis heads outside, Ebony proudly walking after him, pretending she’s not following. Gladiolus doesn’t know if he’s relieved or disappointed by their exchange. Carrying on as if nothing happened is comfortable right now. But it won’t stay that way.

He’s proven right that very evening. Ignis lies on his side, back to him as always, but there’s an undercurrent of tension to his posture Gladiolus can’t miss. He can’t bring himself to reach out as he’s done for weeks, months now. He stares at the ceiling.

‘Good night,’ he tries.

‘Night.’

Ignis’s tone is dangerously blank and Gladiolus hates it. They’re broken, and he doesn’t know how to fix it. Sleep flees their grasp for hours but neither of them acknowledges it.

Gladio is woken up by a few pounds of fur trying to suffocate him. He pushes Ebony away with a groan. He’s alone in the cabin. Ignis’s spot beside him is cold.

They stick to their routine, but their interactions are not as easy as they once were. Gladiolus still squeezes Ignis’s hand during the hardest parts of their nightly reading, but he doesn’t hold on to it the way he used to. He waits for that illusive right time that’s supposed to make everything okay between them again.

The plants give him a headache too. They reach his knee and stop growing, one by one they shrivel away. Mid-summer he pulls the last softened bulb out of the earth. He looks at it for a long time before burying it again, a grave this time. No life is lingering in the deformed little plant.

He heads back to the house. There’s nothing left for him to do on the plot. He waits for the grief and the sadness to come - as they did the previous year. In vain. Instead he only feels tired. When he walks in, Ignis is standing with his back to the door, kneading root dough on the kitchen counter. The last few weeks can go to hell. Gladiolus walks right up behind him and drops his head on his shoulder. He breathes Ignis in, trying to forget how much he’s missed this, he’s missed him, even when he was but an arm’s length away.

He feels Ignis’s shoulder move as he washes his hands in the bowl of water he wet the dough with and wipes them on a tea towel. A palm settles on Gladio’s head, solid and warm, fingertips brushing his hair gently.

‘They didn’t make it, did they?’

‘How do you always know?’

‘You’ve been worried.’

Gladiolus hums softly. He has. For many reasons.

‘You’re okay?’

‘Yeah,’ he says, making no effort to move. ‘I’m not going to break down like before, promise.’

‘Any idea what went wrong?’

‘Not really. But they definitely did better, this year. I’ll keep trying. There must be something else I can do.’

Ignis turns around to face him, and Gladiolus thinks that maybe this is it, maybe that’s the _right time_ , maybe he should say something or just damn it all to hell and kiss him. But unseeing eyes stare straight through him and he can’t bring himself to. It’d feel cheap and disrespectful to take advantage.

Already the moment has passed and Ignis - oblivious - goes digging into the large trunk beside the fireplace.

‘I don’t know if it’ll help, but I remember something…’

The chest is filled with all sorts of eclectic items they needed to store somewhere - the cabin having limited storage space, and Gladiolus has no idea what he’s referring to. He waits, watches Ignis pull books out and his fingers running across the embossed titles. The inherent beauty of his touch, fast and precise, strikes Gladiolus. It is but a small gesture; yet it reminds him of the grace, the incredible accuracy Iggy always demonstrated when fighting.

‘There,’ Ignis says, handing him a book. ‘It might be worth a look.’

It’s one of the witch’s books, a heavy tome, bound in worn-out leather.

‘ _The Forest’s Song: A Guide to Vegetal Magic_ ,’ Gladiolus reads.

‘It might all be mumbo jumbo, but remember how the Caelums could draw magic from elemental deposits? I thought there might be something to it.’

‘Could be useful. Thanks, Iggy.’

The book is a collection of arcane beliefs, references to energy flows and the magical auras of tree nodes Gladiolus doesn’t quite understand and is not sure he believes in. But the last few chapters detail practical advice on reinforcing sources of vegetal magic. Most of it is odd but easy to understand. No mumbled prayers at midnight under a full moon, no sacrifice of any sort. Just a series of deep cuts to make into the trees at precise spots, under the first branch, between the two closest roots, midway between the soil and the top of the crown on the eastern side. Or a recipe for a decoction of cave mushrooms to water slow-growing plants with to call forth magical energy. He’s not sure what to do with the information until he turns the last page and looks at the endpaper. Sketched out in faded ink is a map. The same spidery scrawl he found under the bowl of bulbs stretches over arrows pointing outside the frame of the page. ‘Maidenwater,’ ‘Malmalam Thicket,’ ‘Lestallum,’ ‘Seaside.’ The rest of the paper is filled with hundreds of meandering lines of varying width and intensity linking together large bulbous rosaces. Arcane symbols are scribbled near the biggest ones.

From the mentioned landmarks, it’s obviously a map of the forest, but he recognises little of it. It has nothing to do with the topography of the terrain, or the paths he remembers from their first foray into the area all those years ago. Still he has nothing left to lose and the outline of the woodland is detailed enough. He takes the book with him and goes for a stroll.

The term ‘stroll’ applies for all of five minutes, then he has to dig into the undergrowth with a machete. Still, one of the rosaces is not far east of the cabin, and it’s worth a look. He checks the direction he’s heading in with a compass every few yards. It’s an approximate help at best; the map is far from precise, but it’s better than nothing. Keeping oneself oriented in a mesh of dry brambles and broken branches so dense and tall they keep most of the daylight out is difficult. Half a mile in he finds what he is looking for.

The tree is gigantic. Even with his arms spread out, Gladiolus cannot reach halfway around it. It must be centuries old, maybe even millennia, one of the oldest trees around for sure. Yet, despite his hope, it looks as dead as the others. Its branches stretch high, heavy and naked, grey as if still covered in ash. Gladiolus looks around but this has to be it, there is nothing else of note close by. The rosace has to be the tree. Or… he opens the book again, tries to find the relevant passage and struggles to read in the half-light. He should have brought a lamp. He deciphers a paragraph about Mother Trees and how they survey and nurture the cove around them, about their links to the forest and to the fungi that propagate through the soil and link tree roots together. He looks at the map again. He gets it now.

And then he wonders… he wonders if the cruelty of man-made history has erased the memory of magic not designed to attack or defend, of magic that was there but to link, and to fill one with awe. With a sense of wonder beyond greed and gods. He can see it now. The plants around the tree, there on a svelte birch, here on a desiccated bramble, a few hints of life. A leaf. A stem with a greener tinge than the rest. Life is here still, muted, hidden, but enduring.

He turns the pages with sudden urgency. He knows it’s there. He’d only skimmed through the instructions the first time around, doubting it would ever be of use, but the title on the page was telling. ‘Awakening spell.’

‘Sorry,’ he says out loud. The forest resonates like a cavern.

He takes a heavy stone and his hunting knife and he gets to work, plunging the blade deep into the Mother Tree. Under the first branch. Between the two closest roots. And then, he has to climb on a nearby hazel, crawl alongside a branch - praying it will support his weight, to reach the midway point between the soil and the crown of the gigantic tree to the east. When he’s done, he feels exhausted, out of breath. Sap covers his hands, warm but not burning. It reminds him of fresh blood.

He would have laughed at himself for what he decides to do next not so long ago, but he doesn’t mind the absurdity of the world anymore. He sits on the ground, watches the tree bleed for hours, deep into the night. He knows Ignis is going to worry. He’ll have to apologise. But it would be wrong for the tree to wake up alone.

Just before dawn - when the sky starts to lighten but the stars still cling on, he finally stands and heads back to the cabin. He can’t put the feeling into words, but he suddenly felt released from a blest duty, not because he has failed his charge but because he has accomplished what needed to be done.

He spends the rest of the summer and most of the autumn finding all the trees marked on the map. All forty-two of them. He spends weeks digging new trails in the undergrowth, reaching areas of the woodland no-one has stepped in for over a decade. He camps outside most often than not, to not hinder his progress.

He still makes sure to spend a day home each week, so Ignis knows he’s alive and well, and to catch up on his writing. He stays longer the day they read about losing Noctis that first time. He stays because Ignis is as pale now as he was back then, as silent, because Gladio’s own heart is shattering all over again. As obvious as the toll on Iggy is when he writes those passages, the hurt doesn’t come fully out until Gladiolus reads them back to him.

The next day, Ignis has to set down his mug of tea at breakfast, his hands still trembling, from grief, and exhaustion perhaps. They’ve barely slept but they talked, well into the night, about what they remembered, about what they felt. They didn’t share much when it happened, only scrambled to get out of Niflheim alive. In the early hours of the morning, Gladiolus finally dares to ask.

‘Think we could have done anything different?’

Ignis is silent for a long time, his hand in his hair and his eyes half-closed, not even trying for his usual composure. When he speaks his tone is low and controlled, but Gladio knows him too well to miss the anger in it.

‘We could have made many other choices,’ he admits. ‘But I’ve imagined it all - so many times - and none of it would have made a damn lick of difference. Not once we reached Gralea anyway. And before that, well, we didn’t know any better.’

‘And if we had?’

He regrets the question as soon as he asks it. It’s the one question they’ve avoided all along. Was there ever another choice? Could they have fought that prophecy and the farce they were asked to put up - unknowingly - to fulfil it? Or would they have condemned Eos by being wilful and themselves with it?

‘I don’t know,’ Ignis answers. He sounds drained. ‘I don’t know.’

At that time, Gladiolus wonders if Ignis has made the right choice, putting himself through this again. But after a few days, he realises the truth. They never had the opportunity to work through any of this, they bottled it up, kept moving, had to survive. As harrowing as staring the past head on is, they need this. For all that Ignis tried to protect him, Gladio needs this too.

It takes him another month of scouring the forest before he gets to all the trees. The nights are getting colder, he can taste winter on the wind. The timing is perfect and maybe some gods - small and unknown, not the egotistic Astrals - are watching over him. He’ll get back to his sedentary life just in time to help Ignis prepare the cabin for the cold months. And then he’ll figure out a way forward. They have enough regrets - justified or not. And Gladiolus - as worried as he is about misunderstanding Ignis’s wishes - cares little for more.

The ‘welcome back’ he receives when he steps over the threshold is as amiable and serene as ever. Dinner is pleasant, Gladiolus is tired but proud to be done with the task he had set himself. He won’t know until spring if his work is truly going to make a difference, but he’s hopeful and it’s a nice feeling to experience again.

‘Dave dropped by when you were away.’

‘Damn, I didn’t think we’d see him again. It’s been a while.’

‘He’s lost an arm, but still going strong otherwise.’

‘Did he want anything?’

‘Not really. He heard we were living here, so he wanted to check on us I suppose. He did say something that intrigued me though.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ll spare you the language he used. He thought the witch knew we’d come here.’

Gladiolus frowns.

‘You’re not buying that, are you? There’s no way.’

‘I don’t know, honestly. Before all that’s happened I wouldn’t have, but now… We’ve seen a prophecy come true, is it that far-fetched to think she might have had her own ways?’

‘I guess.’

Sleep escapes Gladiolus that evening despite his weariness. He lies on the blankets, listens to Ignis’s breathing, slow and deep, beside him. He remembers the old lady and wonders. In the end, the truth doesn’t change anything, but it is strangely fitting that they found this place. A small, bony cat to give Ignis something to look after, watch over, and calm his mind so he could tackle his need for closure. Those bulbs to give Gladiolus something to protect and shield and a goal to move beyond his guilt. He wishes he knew what happened to the old witch. She’s most certainly gone, but he would have liked to pay his respects all the same.

The next morning, Iggy is uncharacteristically hesitant when he hands him his tea.

‘Do you have plans?’

Gladio doesn’t, except for an invigorating bath under the thicket’s waterfall, probably the last one this year. Then, it’ll be back to the kitchen sink and buckets of melted snow where they’ve dumped a few boiling kettles. He makes a note for the next year to go see if he can find a ruined Niflheim base that still has some solar panels he could _borrow_. He’s never done any electrical work, but he’ll learn. Ignis has a working knowledge of just about anything. They’ll buy a book and figure it out. A hot water reserve would be worth the effort.

‘Not particularly,’ he says. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘I’m nearly done. Actually, I haven’t written anything all week. I thought…’

Ignis winces as if tasting sourness in the words, but he takes a breath and continues.

‘I thought maybe you’d be okay staying with me when I finish it.’

Finish it. That can only mean one thing. Gladiolus’s heart is in his throat.

‘Of course, Iggy.’

‘Thank you. Let’s get this over with.’

Gladio sits on the other side of the kitchen table from Ignis with a book. Their knees brush against each other every so often. Ignis writes slowly. One letter after the other, carefully spaced out on the paper, the same way he’s written the hundreds of pages that preceded this chapter. His eyes stare somewhere over Gladiolus’s left shoulder, harder than usual, and brighter. But there are no tears. It takes a long time. Ignis’s jaw is so tight, his teeth grind against each other. Gladio doesn’t try to peek but he can’t concentrate on his book. In the end, he reaches across the table, sets his hand down with a soft thud, palm up. Ignis doesn’t pause, but he closes his eyes and his fingers squeeze Gladiolus’s tight, holding onto them like a lifeline.

The hours pass. Gladiolus doesn’t move. He might just be sitting there, but he is exactly what Ignis needs him to be right now. An unwavering support, an anchor, a shield. It feels painful and right all at once.

Dusk colours the sky in pink hues when Ignis finally sighs and sets his pen down. He takes the pile of paper and pushes it across the table.

‘Read it.’

‘Now?’

‘Please.’

‘Okay. But let me start a fire first, I won’t have enough light otherwise.’

That’s how they spend the evening. But Ignis doesn’t take his usual spot in the armchair. He sits near Gladio on the carpet, his head in his hands, listening to every word and yet further away than he’s been all day. Nothing has ever been as hard to read and Gladiolus struggles to not let his voice falter, to mask the tears filling it. He has to pause a few times, but he doesn’t stop. This is it. This is what they both need to come to grips with. This is what happened and nothing they will ever do can change it.

He has to blink away the tears, when he reaches the end of the chapter, to read the signature, his voice breaking on the words.

‘ _In the service of my King, Ignis Scientia.’_

Ignis doesn’t raise his head.

‘Thank you, Gladio,’ he says, his voice so faint it is but a whisper.

There’s nothing more to say that evening. They lie side by side. Gladiolus pretends not to notice Ignis’s shoulders shaking silently in the half-light. He doesn’t try to stem the tears either. It’s been over two years, and finally they’ve given themselves permission to grieve.

A couple of weeks later, they make their way to Lestallum to bring the rest of the manuscript to the publisher. Ignis had done it on his own so far, but this feels too important for Gladiolus to let him go alone. They have a long meeting. The man wants an epilogue, Ignis shakes his head. It ends at first light, that’s the story he was set to tell. The man wants to change the title. ‘ _The Last King’_ sounds better than ‘ _The Uncrowned King,’_ he explains. Ignis tells him he’s missing the point entirely. Calm and terrifying. In the end, the publisher relents. Gladiolus sits back and enjoys seeing Ignis assertive again, remembers how no one ever got their way against him when he’d decided otherwise.

They eat skewers of garulet - extortionate but they have little opportunity to treat themselves - at a booth in the night market, then head to the Leville that has finally reopened. One room, twin beds. The wallpaper hasn’t been replaced. It’s torn in places and stained in others, yet achingly familiar. It feels right to spend the night there considering the reason behind their trip.

Gladiolus brushes his teeth and turns the lights off before slipping into bed. The room is dark. He listens to the sound of the water, to Ignis changing into his night clothes. He thinks about his resolve. No more regrets. He’ll wait until they’re back home, and then they’re going to talk, he promises himself. Right time or not.

Absorbed in the imagined conversation playing in his mind, he doesn’t notice Ignis walking to the bed, but he can’t miss him climbing in it. He’s too surprised to react when Ignis arranges himself against him, seeking comfort in a way that can only be described as ‘snuggling.’

‘Iggy?’ he says softly.

‘I’m not moving unless you ask me to.’

The idea he would is preposterous. He closes his arms around Ignis, draws him close. It feels more intimate than ever before. It’s not just support anymore, the affection - the love - in their embrace is obvious without words. He can feel Ignis’s breath caressing his neck and he starts to laugh.

‘Let me in on the joke?’

‘I should have known. I really should have known.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I was making plans, I had it all sorted, what I’d do, what I’d say. But of course, you beat me to it. And more smoothly than I could have.’

Ignis chuckles. It’s all the permission Gladiolus needs to kiss the laughter from his lips.

They go back to the cabin the next day. Their third winter is remarkably more pleasant than the previous two. They enjoy every second.

Spring comes with an eruption of green. It’s hardly comparable to the world of their younger years, but it’s an incredible sight all the same. The greenery radiates from invisible lines joining the Mother Trees together. Gladio is proud and fascinated. The whole forest has awoken.

On the third day tilling his field, a host of sparrows land on a nearby oak tree, chirping happily. Besides fish, it’s the first time he’s seen so many wild creatures in one place in a long time. He hopes his companion of a season is among them.

When it comes time to plant the bulbs, the elixir looks paler than before and he decides to risk it all. There’s little else he can do now, so he takes each precious bulb and buries ranks after ranks of them. He feels either incredibly stupid or brave and he’s not sure which.

The next few weeks are tense and lonely. Ignis is away more often than not working with the publishing house editor. _The Uncrowned King_ will come out at the beginning of the summer and there’s much left to smooth out. One by one, green blades pierce the surface of the plot, there are tens, maybe hundreds of them. They’re everywhere.

Another week and they’re already a foot in height. Gladiolus hasn’t counted them. He’s strangely superstitious about making this a number game, but he knows them all, knows he hasn’t lost any yet. He sits for a full day under the oak tree watching a landscape filled with more green than brown and grey. Blinking feels sacrilegious. He worries every morning that he will come to the plot and find it ill or dead. But they only grow stronger.

By the time they reach his thigh, their nature is obvious and he laughs and laughs. Bright and carefree in a way he’d forgotten he could laugh. He reminds himself of what Dave said. ‘She knew you’d come.’

The gladioli grow to his waist, and keep going, start sporting spots of colour, barely visible inside their vivid green casing. None of them bloom fully. Gladiolus rushes to the field every morning and every morning he is disappointed. They’re getting ready, he tells himself, they want to be beautiful. He’s waited long enough, he can wait some more.

One morning, the first week of summer, he wakes up, makes tea. They have sourced coffee now - imported from Accordo, but he leaves it for Ignis. It’s too rare a treat for him to waste it on his untrained palate. It’s early, right after dawn, and the sky is perfectly clear. The atmosphere has a quiet, reverent quality when he steps outside, wearing only his sleeping pants and a blanket draped around his shoulders.

The field is a maelstrom of colours he glimpses between the trees. He starts running. Pinks and yellows and oranges and reds and purples of all shades swinging gently in the wind. He walks carefully into the plot until he’s surrounded by hundreds of flowers. He brushes them with his fingertips, one after the other, half-expecting them to vanish or for him to wake up. After a while, he sits down, losing himself in a vegetal sea of his own making. He feels both happy and lost, and he stares and stares. Minutes pass, maybe hours, until he hears Ignis call his name.

He gets up just in time to see him reach the field, stopping at the edge.

‘I could smell them from the house,’ he says.

Gladioli aren’t exactly fragrant but Gladio has learnt long ago not to argue with Ignis’s preternatural senses. He walks up to him, kisses him. Hard.

‘Good work,’ Ignis says. He’s smiling, soft and content. Achingly beautiful.

‘Thanks.’

‘Tell me what they look like.’

Gladiolus pulls him down to lie in the grass with him. He stares at the sky, framed with tall dancing flowers, and he starts talking. He tells Ignis about the hues, and the shimmers, and the clouds. And slowly, he talks about what the flowers meant to his family, he talks about what he felt when he recognised them. He tells him how he feels about having nurtured and protected thriving, vibrant life the way he did, how he knows Noct would have forgiven them.

And finally, as Ignis brings their intertwined fingers to his lips, he talks about the future.

 

 

Thank you to [Asoeiki](https://asoeiki.tumblr.com/art) for letting me post her work here and for inspiring me to write this story. 


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